For various reasons, oil and/or gas wells are temporarily plugged and left, and at a later time are brought back into production. Safety and environmental regulations require that temporarily leaving a completed live well requires costly installations. When it is desired to reopen the wells, various types of tubing plugs must be either retrieved or opened by wireline or other methods such as ball drop while applying pressure to the tubing. Existing equipment available today are landed in tubing nipples on conventional locks but have the disadvantage of leaving the production bore restricted.
The present invention is directed to a pump-out plug system for a well conduit in which a landing nipple and sub are connected to the lower portion of the well tubing or conduit. When it is desired to plug the well, a pump-out plug is landed in the landing nipple. The pump-out plug has a bi-directional valve which is opened when running the plug for allowing fluid bypass and after landing closed to provide a positive seal in both directions. When it is desired to bring the well back into production, pressure from the surface pumps out the plug and allows full bore production of the well to be reinitiated. By using a modular design, this process may be repeated as required.